Builder's escrow account taken by Lower Providence Board of Supervisors to complete work at the Providence Place townhouses

LOWER PROVIDENCE — An escrow account to guarantee completion of public improvements at the Providence Place townhouses was taken by the Board of Supervisors Thursday night to finish the work.

The unfinished work includes concrete sidewalks, the final paving on the roadways, placement of topsoil next to a retention basin and Belgian block curb repairs, said Township Manager Richard Gestrich.

An earthen berm placed by the developer behind a row of the townhouses has allegedly pushed stormwater into some residents’ basements.

“Some residents have complained about water in their basements off Eaglestream Drive,” Gestrich said. “We have to correct the drainage associated with the basin.”

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The $93,992.30 escrow account for Owl Creek Partners of Collegeville is $59,111 less than an engineer’s cost estimate for the full set of repairs, Gestrich said.

“It has almost been five years trying to get the development finished,” said Joe Mungavin, the president of the Providence Place Homeowner’s Association. “The board attached the money that was there but there is not enough money in the reserve to finish the job. The developer went bankrupt or closed shop.”

Gestrich said that $34,000 from the township’s tree fund could be used to make up part of the monetary shortfall. The work will be bid out in January by township officials.

Mungavin said it was “a good thing that the township finally stepped in. Everything done here was like pulling teeth. It took over a year to get a dirt pile moved.”

In other business, the board appointed Benjamin Neider, a 16-year-old junior from Methacton High School, as a student representative to the board. The Lower Providence resident will begin serving on the board at the Dec. 20 meeting and continue until the end of 2013.

At the Dec. 20, 7:30 p.m., meeting at the Level Road Schoolhouse, the board will hold a public hearing on an ordinance removing the mixed-use overlay zone from 26.4 acres in the Park Pointe industrial park. The change will leave the underlying Industrial Park zoning in place, which will allow a medical technology company to move into 1111 Adams Avenue, said Gestrich.

“We have a company that is interested in putting medical technology into the building,” Gestrich said. “They came and asked for the old use. The industrial park had allowed those uses in the past.”

The overlay zone is bounded by Audubon and Rittenhouse roads and Monroe Boulevard. In includes Galen Inc. at 2661 Audubon Road, the Providence Office Center at 1111 Adams Avenue and Monroe Delval Associates at 2501-2525 Monroe Blvd.

“The mixed use does not allow for manufacturing uses,” Gestrich said. “We are finding there is a demand for those uses.”